A peculiar species of cargo ship populated the Great Lakes in the late 1800s – the whaleback. Designed by Scottish captain and inventor Alexander McDougall,
Maritime History
Splice the Mainbrace: How the Navy Gave Us Cocktails
The rowdy sailor and his bottle of rum. Few stereotypes have stuck for so long, and this one is so deeply etched in our minds
The HMHS Britannic – Greatness Without Glamour
The tragic demise of the RMS Titanic still haunts the world more than a century later, while after decades of faithful service, the RMS Olympic
In the Flames of Madness – the SS Morro Castle
In the dark hours before dawn on 9 September 1934, the residents of Asbury Park, a seaside town in New Jersey, woke up to a
Why Are Ocean Liner Hulls traditionally Black and Cruise Ship Hulls White?
We all know those photographs from the golden age of the ocean liner – giant black hulls with sharp, white superstructures towering above. Ever wondered
The Aral Sea and Its Fleets
Split between the most abandoned corners of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, lies a forlorn desert, one saltier than the ocean. Not a single path runs through
The SS Île de France – A Floating Monument of the Arts Décoratifs
By the late 1920s, the charm of the legendary pre-Great War ocean liners was already fading. Yes, Cunard’s Mauretania, Aquitania and Berengaria were as dependable as ever, and White
Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his Ships
The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 18th century and was a time of reason and enlightenment, of ingenuity and progress, of whistling steam-powered
The SS Imperator: A Grand Hotel on the Ocean
A new ocean liner joined the Hamburg-America Line on 23 May 1912: the mighty SS Imperator. First interesting fact: she was a he. By order of Kaiser Wilhelm
Rotterdam: How a Harbor Strike Created the Largest Chinatown in Europe
It is a chilly spring day in 2019. Looking at the quiet streets of Rotterdam’s neighborhood of Katendrecht and the spruced-up buildings that line them,